PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING OF CHILDREN EXPOSED TO COCAINE PRENATALLY

A sample of 25 children between the ages of 2 to 5 years who had been exposed to cocaine prenatally, was compared to a control group of 18 c hildren of similar background, not exposed to cocaine or other drugs p renatally, on several aspects of their developmental status. The AGS S creening Profile was administered by the same female examiner to all t he children in the presence of their mothers. The structured interview sections of the instrument were administered to the mothers, and obse rvations were also recorded on the mother-child interactions during th e testing period. The control group was significantly superior on all the subtests except for the Motor Coordination and Speech Articulation sections. Home Status was particularly superior for the control group . When this factor, however, was controlled by covariance analysis, th e differences between the adjusted means of the two groups on their co gnitive, language, and social functioning became non-significant stati stically.